


Stand Up Straight

by waltzmatildah



Category: Graceland (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-06
Updated: 2015-04-06
Packaged: 2018-03-21 13:13:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3693575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waltzmatildah/pseuds/waltzmatildah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: <i>I'm gonna pop your bubblegum heart...</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Stand Up Straight

Right from the very beginning, Mike is always too _something_ for Paul. 

Too young  
Too east coast  
Too eager  
Too hidden inside his own shadows

_Too…  
Too…_

Too smart.

 

 

The night of their first fuck, Mike’s been at Graceland a couple of months. Enough time for a nickname to have stuck but not enough that the dishes aren’t still his sole responsibility.

The house has emptied out, a rare and echoing kind of silence split only by the sound of them.

Mike and Paul  
Levi and Briggs

They drink beer and order pizza, and when the television is switched to live coverage of a football game being played on the other side of the country, Paul rolls his eyes at the growing pile of stereotypes they’ve managed to cover.

Mike’s shit-eating grin is as casual as the shrug that accompanies it.

Paul shakes his head in reply as he swallows; a long, slow pull at the neck of his beer. Dares himself not to blink.

_Doesn’t._

 

 

Later, when the lukewarm Coronas become cheap, acrid tequila that probably belonged to Johnny at some point, the football game neither of them actually gave a shit about makes way for a bass-heavy channel playing live music.

Suddenly, but, paradoxically, _oh so slowly_ , The National are singing about blood and buzzing and hell.

Yes.

_Hell, yes…_

Paul thinks he knows the feeling intimately.

 

 

They fuck at the top of the stairs because, why not?

It starts and then it’s over with, fast, borderline violent. Teeth and nails and weight and heat and blood  
and blood  
and blood.

_Buzzing…_

As they drag themselves apart again, Mike’s shit-eating grin is gone and Paul can already see the cogwheels inside his brain turning.

Too hard  
Too much  
Too stupid

_Too late now…_

And Paul thinks, months, weeks, years… there’s only one way this goes from here.

 

 

There’s a middle then… mixed in amongst the lies and the tricks and the quick fucks they steal from one another when they think no one else is looking.

Sometimes Paul wonders if it matters, _the middle_. Other times he knows it doesn’t matter at all…

 

 

He’s not thinking about the end when he starts CPR.

Climbs, hands shaking   
knees shaking   
_thoughts shaking_ , up and onto the hospital bed.

He straddles Mike at the same time he’s screaming for help and pulling at wires that catch and roughly measuring out where he needs to push  
and push  
and push.

_Thirty to two if they’re turning blue._

Eight, nine, ten, eleven…

 

 

He’s pulled roughly from the bed by hands he can’t see  
can’t feel  
can’t seem to shake loose. 

Staggers back and over and down  
down  
down. 

Ends up pressed against the wall, sweat slick and heaving despite time moving at warp speed.

The mass of medical professionals now surrounding the bed bring their hands up, palms out, a surrender of sorts. Mike’s body lurches from the sheet, like a puppeteer has him trapped by invisible strings, is jerking him in time to a beat Paul can’t hope to count.

Arms and hands and legs and feet.

Repeat  
Repeat  
Repeat…

 

 

The monitor gives a cursory one-two before resuming its piercing flat-line. A slowly spinning spiral started too many moons ago to keep track of. Paul knew it then.

And with a sudden, shocking clarity, Paul knows it now.

This is how it comes, this is how it goes. The inevitable end…

Too long  
Too cold  
Too emptied out

_Too soon…_


End file.
